History Main / PollutedWasteland

* From "Be Leery Of Lake Eerie" in ''Walt Disney Comics'' #655, (April 2005), Huey, Dewey, Louie and the Junior Woodchucks discover a dragon that lives off of Lake Eerie's pollutants, only for the dragon to meet its demise when the rain dilutes the lake to a 98% impure level.

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* From ''ComicBook/DisneyComics'' "Be Leery Of Lake Eerie" in ''Walt Walt Disney Comics'' Comics #655, (April 2005), Huey, Dewey, Louie and the Junior Woodchucks discover a dragon that lives off of Lake Eerie's pollutants, only for the dragon to meet its demise when the rain dilutes the lake to a 98% impure level.

* From "Be Leery Of Lake Eerie" in ''Walt Disney Comics'' #655, (April 2005), Huey, Dewey, Louie and the Junior Woodchucks discover a dragon that lives off of Lake Eerie's pollutants, only for the dragon to meet its demise when the rain dilutes the lake to a 98% impure level.

* Parts of Indian cities can be like this due to unregulated recycling of e-waste and other products, and not many restrictions on pollution. This has led to the Indian government to introduce new regulations on pollution and the break down of e-waste.

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* Parts of Indian cities can be like this due to unregulated recycling of e-waste and other products, and not many restrictions on pollution. This has led to the Indian government to introduce new regulations on pollution and the break down of e-waste. Even less flatteringly is the fact that most of India has a problem with plumbing on an unimaginable scale. Sewers are hopelessly clogged due to the huge concentration of people (remember that India has over 1 billion inhabitants and still grows by dozens millions every year) and authorities just can't get the problem under control. The result is terrible hygiene in many places and related side effects like poor health or swarms of pests.

** The GDR had a few such places as well, and tales of former Soviet-personnel-occupied areas (specifically industrial and military) brimming with pollution, loaded with deadly chemicals in the soil and generally being almost impossible to enter are fairly widespread, since the Soviets didn't bother to clean up anything when they left. After the reunion, one of the bigger issues was getting rid of all the pollution and making those places inhabitable again. Overall, it generally worked.

* The Sea of Decay in ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind;; played with this. Ultimately subverted in that the poison-laden plant life, which was caused by human industrial and military waste, were the product of the forest trying to cleanse the land, and underneath the jungle was pristine earth. The Tolumekian Empire, meanwhile, plays it straight.

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* The Sea of Decay in ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind;; ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' played with this. Ultimately subverted in that the poison-laden plant life, which was caused by human industrial and military waste, were the product of the forest trying to cleanse the land, and underneath the jungle was pristine earth. The Tolumekian Empire, meanwhile, plays it straight.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The planet Skaro, as depicted in "Genesis of the Daleks" and several Expanded Universe media, thanks to a centuries-long war of attrition involving nuclear and chemical weapons. And that was ''before'' the Daleks came into the picture.

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* ''Series/DoctorWho'': ''Series/DoctorWho''** The planet Skaro, as depicted in "Genesis of the Daleks" and several Expanded Universe media, thanks to a centuries-long war of attrition involving nuclear and chemical weapons. And that was ''before'' the Daleks came into the picture.picture.** Several Classic Era episodes with an environment Aesop present future Earth this way, albeit off-screen, e.g. "Colony in Space" and "The Curse of Fenric".

* The city of Norilsk in Siberia definitely qualifies. According to the Blacksmith Institute, it's one of the top 10 most polluted cities on earth due to a huge concentration of nickel mines and smelters. According to our friends at TheOtherWiki, there's not a ''single tree'' within 48 kilometers of one smelter. The soil is so saturated with heavy metals that it's ''mineable''. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Environment Here's a picture and more info.]] Perhaps fittingly, it was founded as a [[TheGulag Soviet Gulag labor camp]]. And to top it off, it's one of the largest cities north of the Arctic Circle, at about 70 degrees North (it apparently has the northernmost mosque in the world). But this is not all. This place is actually known as "Place of the Real Russian Umbrella Corp.", because the [[CompanyTown de-facto ruler]] is MegaCorp "Norilsk Nickel" that seems to check off every item on the list of Evil MegaCorp practices: mocking its own employees; slowly poisoning the city, its residents, [[AndYourLittleDogToo dogs]] (lots of them), and even Canada; choking out labor competition as the only place in the city one can work is..."Norilsk Nickel". Be well, citizen, your CEO loves you, and you owe your soul to the company store!

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* The city of Norilsk in Siberia definitely qualifies. According to the Blacksmith Institute, it's one of the top 10 most polluted cities on earth due to a huge concentration of nickel mines and smelters. According to our friends at TheOtherWiki, Wiki/TheOtherWiki, there's not a ''single tree'' within 48 kilometers of one smelter. The soil is so saturated with heavy metals that it's ''mineable''. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Environment Here's a picture and more info.]] Perhaps fittingly, it was founded as a [[TheGulag Soviet Gulag labor camp]]. And to top it off, it's one of the largest cities north of the Arctic Circle, at about 70 degrees North (it apparently has the northernmost mosque in the world). But this is not all. This place is actually known as "Place of the Real Russian Umbrella Corp.", because the [[CompanyTown de-facto ruler]] is MegaCorp "Norilsk Nickel" that seems to check off every item on the list of Evil MegaCorp practices: mocking its own employees; slowly poisoning the city, its residents, [[AndYourLittleDogToo dogs]] (lots of them), and even Canada; choking out labor competition as the only place in the city one can work is..."Norilsk Nickel". Be well, citizen, your CEO loves you, and you owe your soul to the company store!

* The Fushima Islands from ''Literature/TheLotusWar''. The local MultipurposeMonoculturedCrop is poisoning the environment. A horrendously poorly burning fuel is processed from its seeds, it's pollen is so thick it colors the sky and contributes to the Greenhouse Effect, and it poisons the soil with its waste products unless [[spoiler: it's fed blood, so all the animals that didn't get eaten got mashed into fertilizer; now that they're out of animals they're using [[HumanResources POW's]]]]. Everyone's addicted to smoking its leaves to boot. Despite this, the local MegaCorp, which worships it, keeps growing vast amounts of it. People in cities have to wear gas masks at all times when outdoors, some making do with rags tied around their faces. Those too poor to afford a proper mask develop ''lung cancer''. The rain is black and causes chemical burns.

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* The Fushima Islands from ''Literature/TheLotusWar''. The local MultipurposeMonoculturedCrop is poisoning the environment. A horrendously poorly burning fuel is processed from its seeds, it's its pollen is so thick it colors the sky and contributes to the Greenhouse Effect, and it poisons the soil with its waste products unless [[spoiler: it's fed blood, so all the animals that didn't get eaten got mashed into fertilizer; now that they're out of animals they're using [[HumanResources POW's]]]]. Everyone's addicted to smoking its leaves to boot. Despite this, the local MegaCorp, which worships it, keeps growing vast amounts of it. People in cities have to wear gas masks at all times when outdoors, some making do with rags tied around their faces. Those too poor to afford a proper mask develop ''lung cancer''. The rain is black and causes chemical burns.

* Until the 1960s, UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}}, thanks to industrial pollution, was known for its {{Mordor}}-y combination of fire-belching furnaces and smokestacks; air so black with soot that the sky could not be seen in mid-day in photographs, and all the lights had to be on all the time; and water quality capable of petrifying wooden boats into iridescent chunks of iron oxide. It's since gotten much better, though, to the point where it's recently been ranked as one of the cleanest and most livable cities in America.* Creator/RidleyScott claimed that the smoke-belching urban hellscape of TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture UsefulNotes/LosAngeles in ''Film/BladeRunner'' was based on his hometown of Middlesbrough.* The city of Norilsk in Siberia definitely qualifies. According to the Blacksmith Institute, it's one of the top 10 most polluted cities on earth due to a huge concentration of nickel mines and smelters. According to our friends at TheOtherWiki, there's not a ''single tree'' within 48 kilometers of one smelter. The soil is so saturated with heavy metals that it's ''mineable''. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Environment Here's a picture and more info.]] Perhaps fittingly, it was founded as a [[TheGulag Soviet Gulag labor camp]]. And to top it off, it's one of the largest cities north of the Arctic Circle, at about 70 degrees North (it apparently has the northernmost mosque in the world). But this is not all. This place is actually known as "Place of Real Russian Umbrella Corp.", because de-facto ruler is a Evil MegaCorp "Norilsk Nickel" that doing what every Evil MegaCorp does: mocking its own employees, slowly poisoning the city, its residents, also dogs (lots of them) and even Canada. Of course the only work place available is... "Norilsk Nickel". Be well, citizen, your CEO loves you, and you owe your soul to the company store!* Ruhr Valley, Germany, throughout the late-19th and 20th centuries. The River Rhine was said to be polluted enough to be able to develop photographs in it. Add in the coalmining, steel industry and chemical industry and the result was a Polluted Wasteland.* Many of Britain's industrial cities have some similarities with this trope. Even in the early 19th century, [[Creator/WilliamBlake William Blake]] referred to "the dark Satanic mills". The region around Birmingham was (and still is) literally known as "the Black Country", although the area is much cleaner today. Incidentally, Tolkien grew up in this area; many scholars think {{Mordor}} at least in part inspired by the polluted industrial desolation (which leads to a long-time WildMassGuess that the ''Ring'' saga is an allegorical GreenAesop or an [[LuddWasRight anti-technology rant]]).** London's notorious "pea-souper" fogs were a result of this trope; the whole city is built in a massive river valley known as the London Basin, which is a natural fog-trap. When the fog mixed with smoke, not just from industry but from tens of thousands of coal fires in people's homes, the result was a huge blanket of choking smog covering the entire city. Open fireplaces in homes are still banned in many areas of the city as a result.*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke]] was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December 5-9 1952. It is estimated that 12,000 people died prematurely and 100,000 more were made ill.** Sheffield was a major industrial producer of steel and other raw materials, and as a result was covered not only in smog but many areas where covered in soot and dust as well. Sheffield had some of the highest rates of infections aggravated by the polluted air. Thankfully as the industry has moved the city has cleaned up massively, although many older houses are still stained.** There were places around Glasgow, the Scottish mining belt, and Fife where you could set rivers on fire due to mine runoff. Scots of a certain age and locality will remember the "hot burn" - the principal stream of chemicals running from industrial works into the nearest river - which was not to be played near in any circumstances.

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!Americas* Pick a hydraulic fracturing site. ''Any'' hydraulic fracturing site. In case the chemicals in the sludge aren't bad enough, the ones in Pennsylvania are ''radioactive''.* Much of UsefulNotes/NewJersey's reputation as a PlaceWorseThanDeath is because of the Chemical Coast, the stretch of Essex, Union, and Middlesex Counties immediately across the water from Staten Island where petrochemical refining and storage is done. This combined with all the car exhaust from the New Jersey Turnpike ''and'' Garden State Parkway makes what's described as "fifteen miles of universal fart". Add on top of that the fact that New Jersey has the most Superfund sites (sites so polluted it gets special funding from the Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup) of any US state despite being the fourth-smallest in area, and it really doesn't matter that the rest of the state is generally much nicer and cleaner suburbs (plus [[TheLostWoods the Pine Barrens]]) as far as reputation goes.* Until the 1960s, UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}}, thanks to industrial pollution, was known for its {{Mordor}}-y combination of fire-belching furnaces and smokestacks; air so black with soot that the sky could not be seen in mid-day in photographs, and all the lights had to be on all the time; time, and water quality capable of petrifying wooden boats into iridescent chunks of iron oxide. It's since gotten much better, though, to the point where it's recently been ranked as one of the cleanest and most livable cities in America.* Creator/RidleyScott claimed that the smoke-belching urban hellscape of TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture UsefulNotes/LosAngeles in ''Film/BladeRunner'' was based on his hometown of Middlesbrough.* The city of Norilsk in Siberia definitely qualifies. According to the Blacksmith Institute, it's one of the top 10 most polluted cities on earth due to a huge concentration of nickel mines and smelters. According to our friends at TheOtherWiki, there's not a ''single tree'' within 48 kilometers of one smelter. The soil is so saturated with heavy metals that it's ''mineable''. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Environment Here's a picture and more info.]] Perhaps fittingly, it was founded as a [[TheGulag Soviet Gulag labor camp]]. And to top it off, it's one of the largest cities north of the Arctic Circle, at about 70 degrees North (it apparently has the northernmost mosque in the world). But this is not all. This place is actually known as "Place of Real Russian Umbrella Corp.", because de-facto ruler is a Evil MegaCorp "Norilsk Nickel" that doing what every Evil MegaCorp does: mocking its own employees, slowly poisoning the city, its residents, also dogs (lots of them) and even Canada. Of course the only work place available is... "Norilsk Nickel". Be well, citizen, your CEO loves you, and you owe your soul to the company store!* Ruhr Valley, Germany, throughout the late-19th and 20th centuries. The River Rhine was said to be polluted enough to be able to develop photographs in it. Add in the coalmining, steel industry and chemical industry and the result was a Polluted Wasteland.* Many of Britain's industrial cities have some similarities with this trope. Even in the early 19th century, [[Creator/WilliamBlake William Blake]] referred to "the dark Satanic mills". The region around Birmingham was (and still is) literally known as "the Black Country", although the area is much cleaner today. Incidentally, Tolkien grew up in this area; many scholars think {{Mordor}} at least in part inspired by the polluted industrial desolation (which leads to a long-time WildMassGuess that the ''Ring'' saga is an allegorical GreenAesop or an [[LuddWasRight anti-technology rant]]).** London's notorious "pea-souper" fogs were a result of this trope; the whole city is built in a massive river valley known as the London Basin, which is a natural fog-trap. When the fog mixed with smoke, not just from industry but from tens of thousands of coal fires in people's homes, the result was a huge blanket of choking smog covering the entire city. Open fireplaces in homes are still banned in many areas of the city as a result.*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke]] was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December 5-9 1952. It is estimated that 12,000 people died prematurely and 100,000 more were made ill.** Sheffield was a major industrial producer of steel and other raw materials, and as a result was covered not only in smog but many areas where covered in soot and dust as well. Sheffield had some of the highest rates of infections aggravated by the polluted air. Thankfully as the industry has moved the city has cleaned up massively, although many older houses are still stained.** There were places around Glasgow, the Scottish mining belt, and Fife where you could set rivers on fire due to mine runoff. Scots of a certain age and locality will remember the "hot burn" - the principal stream of chemicals running from industrial works into the nearest river - which was not to be played near in any circumstances. America.

* The beginning of the US environmental movement coincided the with Cuyahoga River in UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} catching fire. ''Thirteen times.'' [[MemeticMutation It's so polluted that]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM all their fish have AIDS]]. It has much improved, though, when people decided that flammable rivers were just a bit much.* UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}}'s Gas Works Park was founded around the remnants of an old coal gasification plant, where the soil and water were highly contaminated. Most of it has been capped or otherwise remediated, and the most polluted areas, such as the cracking tower, have been fenced off to the public since the 1980s.* Tacoma's industrial waterfront district, Ruston, was formerly home to the Asarco smelting plant, which in addition to tainting the local soil, spewed arsenic and other pollutants all the way to Vashon Island and West Seattle.

* Parts of Indian cities can be like this due to unregulated recycling of e-waste and other products, and not many restrictions on pollution. This has led to the Indian government to introduce new regulations on pollution and the break down of e-waste.* Beijing and much of industrial China is filled with ever increasing development of factories, burning of fossil fuels, and automobile traffic. The air quality is so bad the reading of the index is off the charts. So bad that canned air is sold to raise awareness (you thought ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' was ridiculous).* Pick a hydraulic fracturing site. ''Any'' hydraulic fracturing site. In case the chemical of the sludge is not bad enough, the ones in Pennsylvania are ''radioactive''.* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Tinto_%28river%29 Rio Tinto]], Spain. Constant mining since [[OlderThanTheyThink 3000 BC]] has left the river a red-orange color (hence its name, which means "Colored River") and a pH of ''2''. The waters house only the most acidophilic bacteria and are a regular visit to scientists who want to see how microorganisms living in other planets might be. * Seattle's Gas Works Park was founded around the remnants of an old coal gasification plant, where the soil and water were highly contaminated. Most of it has been capped or otherwise remediated, and the most polluted areas, such as the cracking tower, have been fenced off to the public since the 1980s.* The beginning of the US environmental movement coincided the with Cuyahoga River in Cleveland catching fire multiple times. [[MemeticMutation It's so polluted that all their fish have AIDS.]] It has much improved, though, when people decided that flammable rivers were just a bit much.* Tacoma's industrial waterfront district, Ruston, was formerly home to the Asarco smelting plant, which in addition to tainting the local soil, spewed arsenic and other pollutants all the way to Vashon Island and West Seattle.

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* Parts of Indian cities can be like this due to unregulated recycling of e-waste and other products, and not many restrictions on pollution. This has led to the Indian government to introduce new regulations on pollution and the break down of e-waste.* Beijing and much of industrial China is filled with ever increasing development of factories, burning of fossil fuels, and automobile traffic. The air quality is so bad the reading of the index is off the charts. So bad that canned air is sold to raise awareness (you thought ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' was ridiculous).* Pick a hydraulic fracturing site. ''Any'' hydraulic fracturing site. In case the chemical of the sludge is not bad enough, the ones in Pennsylvania are ''radioactive''.* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Tinto_%28river%29 Rio Tinto]], Spain. Constant mining since [[OlderThanTheyThink 3000 BC]] has left the river a red-orange color (hence its name, which means "Colored River") and a pH of ''2''. The waters house only the most acidophilic bacteria and are a regular visit to scientists who want to see how microorganisms living in other planets might be. * Seattle's Gas Works Park was founded around the remnants of an old coal gasification plant, where the soil and water were highly contaminated. Most of it has been capped or otherwise remediated, and the most polluted areas, such as the cracking tower, have been fenced off to the public since the 1980s.* The beginning of the US environmental movement coincided the with Cuyahoga River in Cleveland catching fire multiple times. [[MemeticMutation It's so polluted that all their fish have AIDS.]] It has much improved, though, when people decided that flammable rivers were just a bit much.* Tacoma's industrial waterfront district, Ruston, was formerly home to the Asarco smelting plant, which in addition to tainting the local soil, spewed arsenic and other pollutants all the way to Vashon Island and West Seattle.!Europe

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* The Ruhr Valley in Germany, throughout the late-19th and 20th centuries. The River Rhine was said to be polluted enough to be able to develop photographs in it. Add in the coal-mining, steel industry and chemical industry and the result was a Polluted Wasteland.* The city of Norilsk in Siberia definitely qualifies. According to the Blacksmith Institute, it's one of the top 10 most polluted cities on earth due to a huge concentration of nickel mines and smelters. According to our friends at TheOtherWiki, there's not a ''single tree'' within 48 kilometers of one smelter. The soil is so saturated with heavy metals that it's ''mineable''. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Environment Here's a picture and more info.]] Perhaps fittingly, it was founded as a [[TheGulag Soviet Gulag labor camp]]. And to top it off, it's one of the largest cities north of the Arctic Circle, at about 70 degrees North (it apparently has the northernmost mosque in the world). But this is not all. This place is actually known as "Place of the Real Russian Umbrella Corp.", because the [[CompanyTown de-facto ruler]] is MegaCorp "Norilsk Nickel" that seems to check off every item on the list of Evil MegaCorp practices: mocking its own employees; slowly poisoning the city, its residents, [[AndYourLittleDogToo dogs]] (lots of them), and even Canada; choking out labor competition as the only place in the city one can work is..."Norilsk Nickel". Be well, citizen, your CEO loves you, and you owe your soul to the company store!* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Tinto_%28river%29 Rio Tinto]], Spain. Constant mining since [[OlderThanTheyThink 3000 BC]] has left the river a red-orange color (hence its name, which means "Colored River") and a pH of ''2''. The waters house only the most acidophilic bacteria and are a regular visit to scientists who want to see how microorganisms living in other planets might be.* Many of Britain's industrial cities have some similarities with this trope. Even in the early 19th century, [[Creator/WilliamBlake William Blake]] referred to "the dark Satanic mills". The region around Birmingham was (and still is) literally known as "the Black Country", although the area is much cleaner today. Incidentally, Tolkien grew up in this area; many scholars think {{Mordor}} at least in part inspired by the polluted industrial desolation (which leads to a long-time WildMassGuess that the ''Ring'' saga is an allegorical GreenAesop or an [[LuddWasRight anti-technology rant]]).** London's notorious "pea-souper" fogs were a result of this trope; the whole city is built in a massive river valley known as the London Basin, which is a natural fog-trap. When the fog mixed with smoke, not just from industry but from tens of thousands of coal fires in people's homes, the result was a huge blanket of choking smog covering the entire city. Open fireplaces in homes are still banned in many areas of the city as a result. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke]] was a severe air pollution event that affected London during December 5-9 1952. It is estimated that 12,000 people died prematurely and 100,000 more were made ill.** Sheffield was a major industrial producer of steel and other raw materials, and as a result was covered not only in smog but many areas where covered in soot and dust as well. Sheffield had some of the highest rates of infections aggravated by the polluted air. Thankfully as the industry has moved the city has cleaned up massively, although many older houses are still stained.** Creator/RidleyScott claimed that the smoke-belching urban hellscape of TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture UsefulNotes/LosAngeles in ''Film/BladeRunner'' was based on his hometown of Middlesbrough.** There were places around Glasgow, the Scottish mining belt, and Fife where you could set rivers on fire due to mine runoff. Scots of a certain age and locality will remember the "hot burn" - the principal stream of chemicals running from industrial works into the nearest river - which was not to be played near in any circumstances. !Asia* Beijing and much of industrial China is filled with ever increasing development of factories, burning of fossil fuels, and automobile traffic. The air quality is so bad the reading of the index is off the charts (the US embassy briefly Tweeted in November 2010 it was "crazy bad" before replacing it with [[ReadingsAreOffTheScale "beyond index"]], though some Beijingers thought it was refreshingly frank compared to what the Chinese government says); it's so bad that canned air is sold to raise awareness (and you thought ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'' was hyperbole).* Parts of Indian cities can be like this due to unregulated recycling of e-waste and other products, and not many restrictions on pollution. This has led to the Indian government to introduce new regulations on pollution and the break down of e-waste.

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